Why does getting into the drivers seat, turn the most intelligent people out there into mindless, clueless, road raging idiots?

Aside from being hyperbolic and inflammatory, your premise is, frankly, absurd.

Not all drivers ae slavering, drooling idiots all the time. Some may be that bad at all times, but that’s not your premise.

And the fact of the matter is that even walking on sidewalks, stepping on stairs, waiting in lines at supermarkets and in movie queues, people are not as altogether immobile and “regular” as you might expect. But they’re also not (usually) in vehicles and they’re never traveling at 60 mph or more in those situations, either.

In addition to the foregoing, in a supermarket checkout lane there is “a single line”, and it’s easy to see – and talk to – anyone who decides to cut the line or step out of it. We can’t do that in traffic, and there are vanishingly few places where “a single line” ever exists on a roadway, anyway.

If you can’t account for and deal with the fact that you often have to take extra care with your vehicle because others don’t do the same for their own, then maybe it’s time for you to consider a different line of work, or just get off the road.

The thing is that people are always imperfect, often change their minds, make mistakes of direction, inattention, laziness, impatience and distraction – all the time. When it happens at 60+ miles per hour, then the effects are magnified.

I share your antipathy for drivers who aren’t aware of and concerned for others, but I never make the mistake of thinking “they’re all that bad”. However, I never lose sight of the fact that “I don’t know which one of them is going to be that bad, so I do have to watch all of them.”

Oh sorry guess I should have said have stated that not all turn into idiots, but most do,after twenty some years dealing with these idiots it does turn one sour,guess YOU don’t spend the time I do on the highways to know that most of these drivers are just plain bad,thats what I find really absurd.

One thing that has kept me alive this long ,is that I expect everyone in front of me to do something really stupid, and you know the sad thing the public has never let me down yet.

I know what you’re saying @SQUEEKY2.

Just curious, @SQUEEKY2—If you could change a couple of common driving behaviors out there, which would you choose?

I think you’re still being over-the-top emotional about this, @SQUEEKY2. Yes, I think most drivers make mistakes of one kind or another: following too closely is a big one, driving too fast for conditions is another (especially in bad conditions, as noted on another of today’s threads), or conversely driving too slowly when conditions will warrant higher speeds. In addition, most drivers seem to want to cut curves too closely (meaning that they’ll violate the adjacent lane in many cases), and unthinkingly (apparently) move into another lane because of an obstruction in their lane, and make other drivers then adapt to their movement.

I still don’t think this makes them “idiots” or even necessarily “bad drivers”. We could all do better; I won’t disagree with that. But to the extent that at times my own aggressiveness (for example) may have caused someone else to do something bad as a reaction, I also take responsibility, when appropriate, for some of the bad things that others do. That has helped me to modify my own driving much for the better as I have matured. I make all kinds of allowance for bad drivers, and shrug off most of it.

If you’d relax and defuse some of your anger, you might find that people aren’t as bad (and drivers aren’t as bad, either) as you tend to portray.

@thorninmud I would triple the fines of using a cell phone while driving for one,and cops can tell if the phone was being used all they have to look at is the call log.

Now this one would take a collective effort from a lot of driving pros but add something about having to share the roads with transport trucks to all driving tests for car drivers.

Next make it mandatory for people to take a defensive driving course ,for every driving offence occurred .

@SQUEEKY2 Could you elaborate on sharing the road with trucks?

@thorninmud people seem clueless about transports they think they can stop on a dime or accelerate to highway speeds in under 6 seconds, and another thing that gets the truckers blood boiling is morons will do an unsafe pass just to get in front of us to slow down and drive 5 to 10 kph slower than we were traveling.

@CWOTUS if we relax while driving with these idiots we will either be in a bad accident or dead,as a transport driver we must pay 1000% to driving and the road, or shit will happen,have seen it a hundred times

The question reminds me of this Goofy cartoon

You’re not tracking what I’m saying, @SQUEEKY2. I mean relax your attitude, not your vigilance or professionalism or skills. If you relax your attitude then you’ll make more allowance for “the incorrect things that people do” and not personalize it so much into “That GD idiot! Look what he just did and how close we came to disaster!! I hate that guy!”

When you make that allowance, then the bad drivers still do their thing, and your observation is still entirely valid, but it turns into more of a “Wow, did you see the bonehead move that he just made? I’m sure glad we were nowhere near that.”

@CWOTUS I get what your saying ,but it’s hard after seeing it everyday from every direction, I guess it’s sorta like soldiers P.T.S.D syndrome .
but when you drive one of these you can see why.dsc_6756

@flutherother that was great,thanks.

Some people are just impatient. Like this guy behind me right now. I haven’t finished my post, and he’s honking just because the light is green.

Intelligence has nothing to do with anger issues.

What people don’t understand is it’s not about ‘I HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY!!” It’s about watching out for each other. I admit, I back seat drive. I had a boyfriend once who used to consistently sit in people’s blind spots. I suggested that he either speed up a little and pass, or drop back. He said, “I’m doing the speed limit!” as if that meant he was in the right. Well, so was the other guy. And thar we sat, no idea if he knew we were there or not.

I think most drivers are reasonably patient and careful. It is certainly in their selfish safety interest to be so. I would submit that texting while driving is a larger problem than raging drivers.

But I can’t accept the premise. It is sort of like saying that because there was a Hitler, human beings must be regarded as evil.

@Dutchess_III That would drive me crazy.

@josie you and I are not exposed to the same set of drivers, the ones I am exposed to are idiots.

I don’t know why it is that you want to personalize this to such a degree, @SQUEEKY2, that you apparently want to characterize so many people you’ve never met as idiots and worse. We are all imperfect humans, even you. Yes, you drive for a living, so you’re on the road constantly and are exposed to much more of the problems that people exhibit there. I get that, and I sympathize, because the mistakes that people make there can not only kill them and their families but you, too. And I get that you have to be vigilant about what “the next guy” and “the next guy” and “the next guy after that” might do, minute after minute and day after day. And I get that so many of them seem not to realize the power they have – and misuse – and treat that so casually, sometimes even contemptuously.

But I would still maintain that most drivers are competent and interested enough in what they’re doing to do it as well as they can, even if some do make mistakes from time to time, and some are more impatient than they should be occasionally, and we all get frustrated by stalled traffic and slowdowns that seem to come out of nowhere, sometimes, and keep us from the things that we would rather be doing.

I also sympathize that even though we are all exposed to the same drivers that you are, good and bad, those of us who don’t drive for a living are only exposed to them for a relatively small part of our day, and not as a full-time occupation. So, yeah, I get that you see more mistakes and bad behavior on a daily basis than most of us do.

Presumably also you have enjoyed that work for long enough that you think you want to keep doing it. Maybe it’s time to reassess whether that’s still true. If I thought that I was working with idiots all day, I’d certainly question my sanity in keeping that job.

@SQUEEKY2 “people seem clueless about transports they think they can stop on a dime or accelerate to highway speeds in under 6 seconds, and another thing that gets the truckers blood boiling is morons will do an unsafe pass just to get in front of us to slow down and drive 5 to 10 kph slower than we were traveling.”

I find this a bit ironic… I’ve seen truck drivers do these things, and what I usually take away from it is that being in such huge vehicles, they must think they’re immune from being hurt in a collision – such that they don’t think about the effect they could be having on drivers in the teeny tiny cars. I’m not saying that all truck drivers are idiots or jerks (as you seem to be saying about car drivers), but I have seen more than a few unsafe moments on highways that were down to truck drivers making sudden decisions then following through without looking to see who is around them.

As to your point about cell phones and defensive driving, I thought you might enjoy this. They probably picked the worst ones to show, but hopefully some of them learned something from it!

I saw a truck once, the driver had fallen asleep, went off the road, wedgedged his truck through the trianglr shape opening made by the pillars holding up the overpass. His cab was triangle shaped. His trailer was ripped in half.
I’ve seen trucks hanging off bridges, throwing huges chunks of rubber off their tires at following traffic, drive through curving mountain roads with signs blinking high wind warnings. You’re right, there’s a lot of insane idiot drivers out there.

I have never said I didn’t include truckers in my line up of idiots,last night on the way home an 18wheeler was about 300feet off the road up a bank half buried in the snow,what makes this guy an idiot it was in a 70kph(38mph) next to a school.

Soory meant to say a 70kph zone next to a school,and in that speed zone how did he get so far up the bank?

Dumb stunt, but I can’t help hoping everyone is safe, including the driver. By the way, it has been some years since I’ve had to take a driving test, but there were questions on it regarding safe movement around trucks.
I still think you need some time away. I’ve seen close up what long term driving does to people. It can eat you up.

I don’t turn into an idiot, but I pretty much expect that other drivers may turn out to be such at any time. And I’m aware that a big truck takes a lot longer to slow down(And speed back up)than a car does. For that matter, I also realize that a motorcycle can’t slow down as fast as a bicycle can(I’m glad my husband doesn’t ride anymore- he was always a safe driver but there are a lot of people who apparently don’t consider motorcycles deserve the same consideration as cars). So yeah, a lot of drivers do stupid things. But those are the ones you notice. Think about all the drivers you saw today who didn’t do something stupid.

@ccrow Your totally right, but those drivers are just that did nothing wrong so I didn’t notice them,and your right it may only be 1 or 2% of the bad drivers BUT those are the ones we notice so we give everyone a bad rap,it’s not fair to the good drivers,just like when a car drivers comes across a trucker doing something stupid,they are very quick to lump all truckers as stupid drivers.

@SQUEEKY2 Do we? I don’t. These are individual choices and individual errors.

@glacial Really so one does something stupid,and it doesn’t make you cautious about them all?

@SQUEEKY2 Well, it would be dangerous to drive without being cautious of other drivers, period. I think there’s a difference between being aware that other people on the road might do stupid things and thinking that they are all stupid people. A person who has a perfect driving record might forget to check their blind spot one time; someone in the passenger seat might have screamed in their ear – we don’t know what’s going on in anyone else’s car (unless we can see the cell phone, grrr). My point is, I think that the judgment is overly broad and overly harsh.

Let me tell you this, A driver a few years ago was getting very tired of people not believing him about the stupid things he would see people do on his normal work day,so he mounted a video camera in his truck and went to work, at the end of his work week he gave it to the local TV station in Vancouver and they gave it one of the top spots on that nights news cast it also got the cops attention and wanted a copy of it, a LOT of drivers (notice how I didn’t say ALL?) get really stupid around transport trucks and want in front of it at all costs and they are willing to risk everyones life just to do that,and a LOT of time then to travel a bit slower than the transport truck was traveling, I see that EVERY DAY on the job.

Maybe I should point out I drive just under 10,000miles a month in every weather condition there is in a transport that has 8 axels ,30tires,2trailers, and is weigh a gross of 63and a half metric tonnes ,so when a see Joe blow car driver making an illegal pass just to get in front of me to drive 5 to 10 kph slower than I was traveling gets me upset.
I have seen that would make you think every car driver out there must be on drugs,from reading a book, to working on their computers(not just texting) to changing their clothes, to beating on the wheel with drum sticks 2 drum sticks (what are they steering with)have come on to an accident that is a full roll over in a 30mph zone how do you get it to roll over at 30mph.
So you want to know one thing that would make us truckers more tolerant ? NEXT TIME ANY OF YOU HAVE TO PASS A TRANSPORT , GO AHEAD AND PASS BUT THEN GO AWAY ,DO NOT SIT IN FRONT OF US GOING SLOWER THAN WE WERE TRAVELING.and uh yeah DIM YOUR DAMN HIGH BEAMS TO ON COMING TRAFFIC.

“DO NOT SIT IN FRONT OF US GOING SLOWER THAN WE WERE TRAVELING.”
This isn’t limited to cars passing big trucks. I hate when people do this to me.
My husband once saw a woman shaving her legs while driving.

ok @SQUEEKY2! I promise! Hey….so were you the one pulling 2 trailers that was F****ing with me on I70 at night when I was driving home from KC with my 70 year old mother in the car??!!! Well, I kicked your ass, didn’t I!

My mother used to complain about people doing that to her. I told her that, in my experience, if people catch up to you and are actually smart and brave enough to pass, they don’t slow down. I suggested that perhaps she was speeding up…? She got mad. But the next time she was driving I watched her speedometer. She fluctuated between 45 and 65, speeding up when people passed her, then slowing down again when they got a certain distance away. This was just months before we took her keys from her. :( That’s been my experience. You pass someone and they SPEED UP!! So then you have to do 90 to get that certain distance away where they don’t feel like they need to be tethered to you.

I want a bumper stick that says, “USE YOUR CRUISE.”

@SQUEEKY2 “NEXT TIME ANY OF YOU HAVE TO PASS A TRANSPORT , GO AHEAD AND PASS BUT THEN GO AWAY ,DO NOT SIT IN FRONT OF US GOING SLOWER THAN WE WERE TRAVELING.and uh yeah DIM YOUR DAMN HIGH BEAMS TO ON COMING TRAFFIC.”

Don’t you ever drive a car? As @ccrow says, this happens all the time. Some people simply don’t know what the left lane is for – in fact, there are a few questions on Fluther which reinforce this – people actually argue that they’re allowed to (and should) go the speed limit in the leftmost lane, which is utter bullshit. It’s not that they are trying to piss you off personally, as a truck driver. It’s that they don’t know how to drive.

But, since you are bringing it up, I’ve done a lot of cross-country driving over the past few years, and I have several times been caught behind two trucks driving in parallel over several kilometres. They should know better.

I’m starting to think that @Jonesn4burgers has a point. You are getting very emotional about this, and it makes me wonder if you are in control when you’re on the job. Do you get this worked up when it’s happening in front of you? How do you handle that stress when you’re on the road?

“two trucks driving in parallel”

My husband drives cross-country a lot, and he frequently sees, and is stuck in traffic behind, this.

That parallel thing is one transport is trying to pass the other, most of the time it’s on an up hill(sometimes not) and it may be the only time the guy has a chance to pass the other truck, it happened to me a few times will be following a slower rig get to a passing lane with no traffic behind us start to make the pass,and within a few moments there is traffic and your right beside the guy so all you can do is keep making the pass,and boy does it ever piss off the car drivers off but they fail to see that aspect of it.

@glacial I have to remain professional that’s why I come here to rant and get my point across.and vent.

@SQUEEKY2 But there is no reason for this. If the truck on the left is not going faster than the truck on the right, he simply has no business trying to pass – or persisting in the attempt to pass once it is clear that he cannot. Why not just reduce speed and get back behind the faster truck? I’m talking about more than a few moments here. It’s clear that large trucks have a lot of momentum to overcome, and they can’t make big changes in speed very quickly, but it’s been my perception that some truck drivers are embarrassed to not complete the pass once started. This is not appropriate. They need to act in the interests and safety of everyone on the road, as we all do.

” I have to remain professional that’s why I come here to rant and get my point across.and vent.”

Ok. I appreciate this. :)

@glacial as I said most times it’s on an uphill passing lane, for instance I have been following a slower truck for awhile ,we come to a passing lane ,but it is an uphill passing lane, no traffic behind us I start the pass but the grade is pulling us both down (in speed quickly) the slower truck on the up hill grade is putting his foot down to keep going(not backing out at all) leaving it all to the passing truck, at this time car traffic is starting to gather behind the 2 trucks and get upset thinking we do this just to piss them off.

@SQUEEKY2 Well, perhaps you just haven’t seen an example of what I’m talking about. I’m not saying you’re personally guilty of this. After all, not all truck drivers are the same. ;)

@glacial Trucks don’t respond like cars. They can’t just ‘gas it’ to get on around. Hills, up and down, affect them more than they do cars.

@Dutchess_III Yes, you will notice that I already made reference to that.

Well, then we just need to give them a second!

@Dutchess_III Yes. I give them plenty of seconds. I am not describing a situation where I am being impatient for no reason. I am describing a situation where two trucks are driving parallel for several kilometres, several minutes. Reasonably flat terrain. I don’t know how much more clearly I can put it.

There is no excuse I can think as to why 2 rigs would be running side by side for miles,maybe the one on the left tried to pass and the one on the right decided to speed up and not let him,now if I was the guy on the left after a minute and finding maybe my truck didn’t have the power to over take drop back and open the left lane for the more important car traffic.

I have never experienced that myself.

You know when I think about it I have come up on 2 cars traveling side by side down the freeway for miles and very little is said about them why just talk about the transport doing this?

There was an article in our local paper once, back in the late 90’s, talking about having limiters on the semis, suggesting that could stop the “rolling roadblocks.” I fired back with an editorial that explained that that kind of thing is a mind set and has nothing to do with speed. I said if a person gets up beside another person and just sits there, it’s because they aren’t thinking any further. Maybe it’s a security blanket kind of thing. At any rate, if they’re that kind of person, it won’t matter if they’re going 20 or 90, that’s what they’re going to do.

Got pretty good reviews on that editorial. In fact, one guy, who turned out to be a trucker, found out where I worked (at CellOne at the time) and came in to meet me to thank me for writing the article. He was a little taken aback when I showed up, a beautiful young woman in a dress, because he thought I was an experienced trucker too!

Just want to update a bit, last night Jan 24 coming back from my north run hit some fog so bad you couldn’t see more than 20feet in front of you the trucks were down to 30kph and barely see the white line and here comes a car with no fog lights passing us all,another idiot was in my left hand lane driving like it was a clear blue day.
So when said for the most part people are safe drivers ,I have yet to see it.

The ones who aren’t safe drivers sure stand out, don’t they.

@Dutchess_III Unbelievably so.